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I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

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Re: I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

#21

Post by g051051 »

iloveluce wrote: post #3

Here is the HN discussion to Part 1 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16217241 Pretty surprised how much Equifax spent trying to win this case. I'm sure they're doing it to dissuade others from suing them as well but after reading this I really want to sue myself. I wonder if they'll appeal the verdict again.

They probably don't care about the cost, it's the precedent they're trying to block or overturn. And I don't see how even the appeal can stand against further appeals (or whatever they do next to protest what they consider an invalid ruling).

Re: I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

#23

Post by hyperbole »

Equifax is yet another form of financial corruption. The charge/fee incurred in freezing your credit is so close to a shakedown - this is absurd. Credit ratings of the population are a product they sell to financial firms and then they charge (read shakedown) that population for pausing the sale of that data so you the consumer can prevent irreparable credit harm. Then when they screw up and allow a leak of your data which will eventually cause irreparable harm they have the audacity to bully those they've screwed over.

Re: I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

#24

Post by paultopia »

Meekro wrote: post #5

I'm as glad as anyone else to see Equifax getting what's due to them, but is anyone else bothered by the surreal quality to this story? It sounds like the rules and procedures being applied were vastly different than what Equifax's highly paid lawyer expected. Is their $1000-an-hour lawyer just incompetent, or is the pro tem judge here allowed to make up the rules as she goes along?

Chances are that the King and Spaulding lawyer has never set foot in a small claims court (or an appeal from small claims court under same rule).

Re: I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

#25

Post by dawnerd »

onli wrote: post #19
Meekro wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any lawyer worth his salt would know that each court has its own particular rules of procedure. If your highly-paid lawyer comes into bankruptcy court and starts trying to invoke procedural rules from juvenile court, that would be pretty convincing evidence of incompetence. So did this lawyer take on a small claims case without realizing that they should probably read up on small claims rules? Or maybe the judge didn…

Since the lawyer did not seem to be aware of basic procedures (wanting to have things stricken from the record despite there not being a record) you can assume he just did not read up on the rules.

And likely didn't even expect to win since they're paid hourly regardless. Probably was just trying to stretch it out as much as they could. Easy money

Re: I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

#26

Post by danielvf »

anarazel wrote: post #12
danielvf wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second judgement is final. No appeal.

IANAL. It's not inconceivable they could make further trouble nevertheless: https://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/3d/1... The relevant part appears to be: "The Eloby court's dictum suggests that section 117.12 was designed to preclude only appeal, motions for new trial, and motions to vacate judgment. The court's initial issuance of the alternative writ further suggests that section 117.12 was not r…

Thanks!

Re: I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

#27

Post by avinium »

Meekro wrote: post #5

I'm as glad as anyone else to see Equifax getting what's due to them, but is anyone else bothered by the surreal quality to this story? It sounds like the rules and procedures being applied were vastly different than what Equifax's highly paid lawyer expected. Is their $1000-an-hour lawyer just incompetent, or is the pro tem judge here allowed to make up the rules as she goes along?

> Is their $1000-an-hour lawyer just incompetent, or is the pro tem judge here allowed to make up the rules as she goes along?

Neither. It's just typical corporate lawyer arrogance in trying to bully and bluff someone into submission.

It really only works on complete amateurs. Given this guy is running a company whose sole purpose is to finance claims against Equifax, he knows how to deal with them.

All in all,I'd say this is a win for the US legal system. It shows you don't have to be a well-funded professional litigator to get access to justice.

Re: I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

#28

Post by gnicholas »

dawnerd wrote: post #25
onli wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the lawyer did not seem to be aware of basic procedures (wanting to have things stricken from the record despite there not being a record) you can assume he just did not read up on the rules.

And likely didn't even expect to win since they're paid hourly regardless. Probably was just trying to stretch it out as much as they could. Easy money

> And likely didn't even expect to win since they're paid hourly regardless. Probably was just trying to stretch it out as much as they could. Easy money

This loss is a huge embarrassment to the lawyer and his firm. The billings for this case are negligible compared to what Equifax pays to their outside law firm every year. But mostly, this is just embarrassing. He might lose the client, and he'll definitely be mocked by colleagues for years.

Re: I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

#29

Post by AdamJacobMuller »

> prove that the increased number of the spam calls I was getting were a result of the breach.

Damnit.

I have to admit to not caring so much about the Equifax breach. I, personally, don't really care about that kind of data being public and I relentlessly monitor my credit report for changes, even if someone did abuse my data, I would know quickly and clean it up before it happened.

But I've been getting a literally 100x-fold increase in spam calls in the past few months. I have gone from one every few days to, I kid you not, 20+/day sometimes. If this is even remotely related to the Equifax breach I legitimately want to sue them just for that.

Re: I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

#30

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

advisedwang wrote: post #18

I wonder how easy it is to collect the judgment against Equifax.

Collecting against companies is far more easier than collecting from uncooperative private persons - assuming the company is "established" in some way. Given that Equifax is a very large company, collecting is easy: once you get your judgement, file for a Writ of Execution and have the sheriff in whatever CA county Equifax has an office in to visit them in-person and demand they cough up the money or they'll start literally seizing assets there-and-then. Failing that, you can also easily get a bank levy against whatever bank accounts Equifax has in your state - provided you can track-down their account details and financial institution: something you can do with an Examination of Assets hearing, which has an added bonus: if the company representative fails to appear they get a bench-warrant for their arrest which becomes a criminal matter.

I'm surprised at how so many small-claim case victors sell their judgement to a collections firm for a fraction of its true value when collecting money is a lot easier and straight-forward than people imagine. You only need to go to a collections company if it isn't worth your time - not if the debtor isn't cooperative.

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